The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Freedom of speech, yet we are limited.… Continue reading A Texas student reflects on hitting the Hazelwood ceiling
Just under the wire for the deadline to file bills for the Texas state legislature, Senator José Rodríguez, D-El Paso, submitted a bill that would grant free speech protection to student journalists in public schools.
Days before the end of his tenure as a regent of the University of Texas, Wallace L. Hall saw his request for documents related to a university scandal denied by the Texas Supreme Court.
An SPLC investigation reveals how Texas' private institutions are using a provision of the state's open records law to delay the release of police reports.
The student editorial board slammed the decision by professional staff members to pull a strip club ad after media attention and reader backlash.
Attorney advocate Adam Goldstein explains the rule's "failure" in a video. The school had previously told student Anthony Mazur he couldn't sell his photos of school sports.
Sen. John Whitmire said he introduced the bill after Rice University denied his request for information about an incident in 2013 where a surveillance video showed two Rice University police officers beating a suspected bicycle thief with batons.
Texas law starts with the assumption that a requestor is owed records within 10 days. But asking the attorney general for an opinion stops the clock and can push the agency’s response time back by a month-and-a-half — which makes the process vulnerable to manipulation by an agency seeking to run out the clock on a deadline-sensitive request.
Sen. John Whitmire proposed a bill on Jan. 15 to amend the Texas Education Code to require police departments at private colleges to follow the state’s public records law just like other law enforcement agencies. The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, which has not yet set a date for a public hearing.
The order disallows “contact with any member of the Court” regarding a recent student case except for procedural and substantive questions. According to the order, newspaper staffers’ violation “may result in the party being held in contempt of court” and referred to the dean for judicial affairs for further proceedings.